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Fiction Short Story

by William G. Alikakos

Thank You Elias

My name is Plato Pappas and I work for the mob. I'm sitting in the office of RICO, a ritzy Brooklyn restaurant and backroom casino. Spiro Decas is my boss, he operates RICO for Capo Cassius, and I'm his errand boy. I do anything he tells me to do from A to Z. Today, it's H for hit.

The hit is on Elias Tellonus, a restaurant owner and my second cousin. We're best friends and I've been getting him out of jams since forever, but I don't know if I can get him out of this one.

He called me up and told me in his whining I'm in a jam voice, "Capo has a contract on me."

"Why?"

"I owe Sharkey money."

"Capo wouldn't order a hit for that. What did you do?"

"I can't talk about it over the phone. Can I see you at 'The Place'?

"10 o'clock tonight?"

He said, "OK" and hung up.

As usual I'm fifteen minutes early and he'll be fifteen minutes late. I'm carrying heat. It's a stub-nosed, high-velocity .22 caliber pistol with a silencer. The Place is a bench in Fort Hamilton Park and faces a long, wide barreled Civil War cannon.

The cannon takes me back to when Elias and I were both six years old. We lived in the same apartment house on 99th street next to the park and we walked to the park almost every day.  We were playing catch near the cannon. The sun was beginning to set and we had to be home before dark. Elias threw the ball to me, high and wide, and it went into the cannon's barrel. The barrel pointed slightly upward and was too high for us to look into. I shimmied up and looked down the barrel but it was too dark to see the end. I told Elias I would boost him so he could crawl into the cannon to get the ball. He told me it was my ball. I said that we both borrowed it from Paul, our thirteen-year old cousin. He said that Paul handed the ball to me. It went back and forth like this until I noticed that it was near dusk and I better be heading home soon. I'd only been late a couple of times and each time mom greeted me with a big hug and then spanked me.

I told him that I would get the ball. He boosted me into the cannon.  I started crawling and the deeper I went deeper into the barrel, the darker it got.  Half way down the cannon I was terrified. The barrel got narrower and even darker. I had almost reached the end when I slid on some oil and hit my head on the back of the barrel wall. I groped around determined to get the ball and touched an oily can before finding it. My right hand was oily so I picked it up with my left.

I tried to get out. I couldn't because I kept sliding into the back of the barrel. I tried turning around but the barrel was too narrow. This was the first time I truly felt panic.  I had felt panic when I lost my mom in a department store, but nothing like this. I turned my head as much as I could and yelled to Elias that I was stuck. He didn't answer me.  I started to yell for help, then whimpered "mama" and finally started to bawl. I started thrashing about trying to get out of the cannon. The oil made me slip and I banged my head against the wall of the barrel again. Dazed, I threw up, and almost choked to death.  I either fell asleep or fainted from fear. I woke up crying and I cried and cried until I passed out from exhaustion. Next thing I knew, someone dragged me out of the barrel by my ankles. People were all over the place. My cousin Paul was the one who pulled me out. I barely got the words out that his ball was still in the cannon when my mom grabbed me and hugged me the tightest ever. I figured I would be spanked the hardest ever but I wasn't. Elias told me he thought I could get out without any trouble and went home.

The aftereffects were devastating. I still have nightmares about the ordeal. That incident made me a stoic. I'm always in control of my emotions except when I'm alone with Elias. From out of the darkness comes Elias. He slithers onto the bench next to me.

I ask him, "So what did you do?"

"Capo overreacted"

"Start from the beginning and just give me the facts. OK"?

"OK already! It all started when I got on a losing streak; I borrowed more money from Sharkey than I could pay back. I went to Spiro and told him I would give up half the restaurant if he could find someone to cover the loan. He said he'd speak with Capo.  Spiro said, 'Here's Capo's deal; you sell 51% of the restaurant to Capital Usury; the money you get from CU you give to Sharkey and everybody is happy except me, the guy who made the deal for you. So, I'll convert the restaurant's small conference room, the one with the back alley door, into a private office and that makes everybody happy.'"

Spiro thinks life is a barter system and he always wants to get his unfair share.

"So you lied when you said you owed Sharkey money."

"No, I borrowed the limit from Sharkey again; Sharkey tells me either I pay the vig or he cashes in my security for the loan."

"The restaurant?"

"No, the usual, with CU owning 51% of it I can't give it away. The usual is an accident and life insurance policy. Sharkey is the beneficiary and accidents and deaths are his specialty."

 "So, then what happened?"

"I go to Spiro and ask him to set me up as a coke dealer; for a ten per cent cut he sets me up with Louie. I'm making money and paying Sharkey the vig and Spiro his cut."

He pauses and I tell him, "Go on."

"One of the users is a snitch and after I sell him a bag the narcs nab me with a kilo plus. They take me downtown to the hole and tell me I'm facing a mandatory 20. I tell them I want to call my lawyer. They tell me not to worry; they're willing to deal. They want me to set Louie up and they'll reduce the charges to possession. I tell them no deal. They tell me they'll drop the charges against me. I tell them no deal. They tell me they'll drop the charges and put me in the Witness Protection Program."

He pauses again and I say, "And?"

"I had to do it."

"Do what?"

"I set Louie up."

I slowly spoke the words in disbelief, "You set Louie up?"

"I was facing 20 years."

"So they got Louie and he's facing life?"

"Better him than me."

I hit him hard on the side of the head and then again, harder for good measure. I lose control when Elias gets himself in a stupid jam that he expects me to get him out of. It has something to do with the cannon but I never could figure out why.

"What do you need me for? You set up Louie, now you go into protection."

"They say they got a slam dunk on Louie and they don't need me. They say the information I gave them got them better witnesses and they don't trust me. They say they didn't charge me and that's enough payback. They say I'm on my own with no protection."

"What do you want from me?"

"Get me out of the jam."

Even though we don't hang out together much, Elias is my best friend and second cousin. Months may go by and we won't see each other and when we do we just pick up where we left off. I've gotten him out of jams but never, and I mean never, did I think of disobeying a mob order. But I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Elias. He saved my life.

We were in our early twenties and we picked up a couple of girls at Coney Island and went to their hangout, a neighborhood bar. We had just done a gig for Spiro and were flush with dough so we bought a couple of rounds for the bar. We made the bartender happy with a twenty and everyone was having a ball when someone from behind pulled my hair and snapped my head back. Almost instantly the person let go. I turned around in time to see a guy and a knife dropping hard to the floor. The bartender told us to beat it before there was real trouble. I wanted to ask him what he meant by real trouble but Elias grabbed me by the arm and we vamoosed.

Later Elias told me he didn't see the knife, he just saw the guy pull my head back.  So he punched the guy in the liver. Elias never told anybody that he had saved my life.

"Do you still have your Greek passport?"  Both our parents were born in Greece so we are citizens of Greece and America. A couple of years ago we got the Greek passports for an overseas gig.

"Yes."

"I can get you to Greece. Do you want to go?"

"Yeah! I knew you would think of something."

"How much do you have?

"Two thousand."

"I can get you three more. Meet me here tomorrow, same time."  I have a contact at the Hotel Moritz, a Greek ship-owners hangout. He owes me a favor. I'll get Elias to Greece even if it kills me.

We get off the bench, face each other and embrace.  Never did I feel such love for him.

Elias stops in front of the cannon and says, "Remember when we were about six years old and we were playing catch? I threw the ball and it went into the cannon. You crawled into the cannon and couldn't get out." He paused and looked into the cannon. "I threw the ball in the cannon on purpose."

I wanted to ask him why. I didn't get a chance. I lost control. I pulled out the rod. He turned his head; the bullet hit him between the eyes.

Thanks to Elias I've never disobeyed a mob order.


About the Author
I was born and raised in Brooklyn/Manhattan. I had a most pleasant misspent youth. I moved to Reno for 7/24 gambling. I am a retired casino and USPS employee.